


My Awakening

by rionaleonhart



Category: Scrubs (TV)
Genre: Delusions, M/M, inspired by Silent Hill, possible dubcon elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-06-19
Updated: 2006-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:55:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24408394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rionaleonhart/pseuds/rionaleonhart
Summary: After the events of 'My Lunch', Dr Cox meets Ben in an abandoned town.Wait. Ben? Something doesn't seem right here.
Relationships: Perry Cox/Ben Sullivan (Scrubs), Perry Cox/John "JD" Dorian
Comments: 4
Kudos: 3





	My Awakening

Dr. Cox had been driving for hours, now. He wouldn’t let himself stop, because when he stopped focusing on the road he knew he would start thinking about the transplant patients who had died, and he wasn’t ready to remember that right now. He didn’t even know where he was going – he just knew that he had to get _away_ from that place.

His pager started beeping. He didn’t bother looking at it – he didn’t care how much they said they needed him, he wasn’t going to go back there, they couldn’t make him and _why the hell wasn’t it stopping?_

Eventually he pulled over to the side of the road and checked it, just to make it _shut up_ , and for a moment he forgot how to breathe.

_BEN,_ it said. _SILENT HILL_.

And he knew that it couldn’t mean anything, that it was a mistake or a hallucination or someone playing a goddamn _trick_ on him – but he knew that he was going to have to drive there anyway.

-

“Where the Hell is he?” Dr. Kelso snarled, frustrated. “He’s not answering his pager. For God’s sake, three patients died, people die here _all the time_ , _anyone_ could have made that mistake – ”

The door slammed open and JD was standing there, grinning triumphantly.

“And you all thought I was crazy when I attached that tracking device to Dr. Cox.”

-

He had never heard of Silent Hill before, and when he got there he wasn’t really surprised: the place looked completely abandoned. The road in was fenced off, so he had to get out of the car and walk down a long, winding path into the town.

There was a graveyard on the way, and he paused for a moment, staring at one of the gravestones. _David Radford_. He knew that it was a coincidence – it _had_ to be, this stone looked like it had been here for decades, the dates too weathered to be readable – but he couldn’t suppress a slight tightness in his throat when he looked at it.

He checked the other gravestones before carrying on – just in case, although of course he wouldn’t be there, it made no sense – but none of them were inscribed _Sullivan_.

‘Silent Hill’. So he just had an entire _town_ to look for him in (and what was he doing here anyway, looking for a dead person?). He pulled the pager out of his pocket again, meaning to ask for a more specific location, but it seemed to have broken. He put it back, swearing under his breath.

Well, it wasn’t as if he had anywhere else to be.

He began to walk.

-

Silent Hill was silent and empty and _infuriatingly foggy_ , and he had no idea where to look first. He had been walking through the streets for what seemed like hours, looking around for any sign of Ben, but with fog this thick he could easily have passed him seven times and just not noticed. Ben _would_ have chosen the most inconvenient place possible and given the most vague directions.

Of course, Ben probably wouldn’t even be here. He wasn’t sure why he was looking.

Eventually he decided to take a rest – leaned against the wall of one of the houses and stared at the ground, not really focusing, and it took him a moment to realise that the road was streaked with blood. He looked up.

Someone was limping away through the fog ahead of him. Probably had a pretty bad injury, judging by the blood and the stumbling, and this didn’t exactly look like a place with fantastic medical facilities, so he knew he should see if he could help whoever-it-was. He hesitated for a moment before starting to follow, though, and he _hated_ that, he hated that little moment of self-doubt. That would never have happened before.

As he gained on him, or her, or whoever, his pager started to beep. He stopped immediately and pulled it out of his pocket, praying inwardly for a message from Ben (even though he _couldn’t_ be here, this was _stupid_ ) – but it still wasn’t working. The screen was blank, but it was still beeping.

The person ahead of him seemed to hear the noise, turned around. Dr. Cox squinted through the fog, frowning, and took a few cautious steps forward. Something seemed off about this. Were they wearing any clothes?

...were they even _human?_

Dr. Cox stopped dead. The thing in front of him was _shaped_ like a person, but it was slimy and eyeless and dead-looking, shuddering and twitching back and forth as if having a seizure. He tried not to think about how the transplant patients had spasmed under the defibrillators.

For a moment it did nothing – just stood there, swaying a little from side to side. The noise of the pager seemed louder than usual, maddeningly repetitive. Dr. Cox wondered why it hadn’t stopped yet.

Dr. Cox wondered why he was still standing there, staring at the _thing_.

He began to back slowly away from it – and then it suddenly _lurched_ at him and raised a twisted arm and oh, God, it was holding a knife, he hadn’t noticed it before, and he couldn’t let himself think about knives and surgery and organ transplants because this thing was actually trying to _kill him_ and he was trying to fight it off with his bare hands but it was stronger than he had expected and eventually he managed to wrest the knife from it and he slammed it into its gut and twisted.

It shrieked and fell to the ground, and he stood for a moment, staring at it – and then it began _scuttling_ , still clinging to life, and he _hated_ that because three people had died who he should have been able to save and it was so _wrong_ that this _thing_ should still be alive when they were dead and so he kicked it, as hard as he could, and it shrieked again and fell still.

Dr. Cox was vaguely aware, as he kept watching the creature for any signs of movement, that his pager had stopped beeping. His breathing sounded louder than it should have in the sudden silence.

It seemed to be dead.

“What’re you doing here? This place is dangerous,” said someone behind him, and he turned around sharply. That voice had been familiar, but –

“Ben,” he whispered, staring.

“You remembered my name!” Ben said cheerfully. “I’m touched, Per.”

Dr. Cox blinked and licked his dry lips. “...you died.”

Ben shrugged. “Yeah, I know. But since when has that ever stopped me?”

-

It was difficult to know how to greet a friend who had been _dead_ for two years. Dr. Cox was fairly sure that ‘so, how’ve you been?’ would probably not be the best conversation-starter, but beyond that he was stuck.

For a few seconds they just _stared_ at each other – and then, because the situation wasn’t bizarre enough already, Ben actually _cracked up laughing_.

“...I’m having some trouble seeing what’s _funny_ about this,” Dr. Cox managed to say eventually.

“Your _expression_ ,” Ben said, still laughing. “It’s amazing. You should see it.”

“Well, then, take a photo. Oh, wait, you can’t take a photo because _you’re not real_. God, I thought I’d got over the denial. Why are you still here?”

Ben actually looked _hurt_ , and this was _stupid_ , it was stupid to feel guilty about upsetting a _hallucination_. “Okay, I’m sensing that you’re not completely happy to see me.”

“I’m not happy because it means I’m _going crazy_ again.” He paused. Oh, hell, he was actually going to try to _comfort_ the hallucination, wasn’t he? This was just ridiculous. He _knew_ it was a bad idea to chase after ghosts, why the hell did he come here? “It’s got nothing to do with you.”

“I come back from the dead, and _that’s_ the welcome I get? Next time, I’m not even going to try.”

It was ridiculous, unless...

“You were – ” he _had_ to be imagining things – “Newbie told me you were dead, but if – I wasn’t there, I didn’t see it, if there was a mistake – ”

“That’d be nice, but I definitely died.” Ben shrugged. “And that sucks, but if I can tell you that then you’re not really in denial, are you? Even if I’m _not_ real, and I’m pretty sure I am.”

This was all _very confusing_. Dr. Cox closed his eyes, pressed two fingers to his forehead, breathed slowly and deeply.

“If you don’t want me here, I can go,” Ben offered.

“No,” he said, letting his hand drop. “Don’t.”

Ben looked almost startled for a moment, and then grinned triumphantly in a way Dr. Cox had never thought he would see again. “I knew you’d miss me.”

Dr. Cox, much to his own surprise, actually _laughed_. “You have _no idea_.”

And just like that, the conversation stopped feeling awkward. He had always known that Ben was able to put him at ease, but somehow he wouldn’t have expected him to have the same effect when he was standing in a foggy town, having just killed God-knows-what, and Ben was, you know, _dead_.

“I’m not kidding about the ‘this place is dangerous’ thing. I mean, I can understand if you miss me _so much_ that you _want_ to commit suicide by slimy monster, but I’m here, so hopefully I can help you get by for now. Seriously, there are probably better places you could’ve visited.”

“You don’t need to tell me that,” Dr. Cox said, gesturing at the creature he had just killed. Ben moved to get a better view of it.

“Oh, that’s just not nice,” he said, laughing.

Dr. Cox looked thoughtfully down at it. “You mean there are more of those things around?” He paused, and then added – with a hint of bitterness – “Well, that’s just perfect, isn’t it? I can _butcher them_ and then _use their organs for transplants_. It probably won’t be good for the patients, but who _cares_ , right?”

Ben frowned and poked it experimentally with his shoe. “Yeah, I’m guessing not. Even if I needed a transplant, I’m not sure I’d want this slimy thing’s liver.”

He almost laughed. “No, that’s not what I – ” he began, and then he pressed a hand to his forehead and closed his eyes again, gritted his teeth. “...before I came here, I – made a mistake. There were three patients who needed transplants, and I – ”

“I know,” Ben said quietly. “I’ve been watching you.”

Dr. Cox opened his eyes abruptly and looked sharply over at him. “You’ve been – ”

“Watching you. Not in the shower or anything, just... generally keeping an eye on you.” He paused. “Sometimes in the shower.”

Dr. Cox looked down at the body again, his hands in the pockets of his white coat. He wished that he had brought something warmer. “So, uh,” he said eventually, “after your funeral – ” and then the absurdity of it hit him and he couldn’t keep himself from snickering. _After your funeral. There’s a hell of a start to a sentence._

“Yeah, I saw it,” Ben said with an odd little lopsided grin.

“...I’m sorry,” Dr. Cox said, after a pause. “I just – I needed – he was _there_ , and you – ”

“ _Perry_ ,” Ben interrupted, rolling his eyes. “It’s _fine_. I just wish you’d said something about it when I was still alive.” He shrugged. “You know, maybe if you’d just _tried_ a little harder at Gay Chicken it would’ve gone somewhere.”

Dr. Cox laughed, a little ruefully. “...thanks.”

There was a brief silence.

“...you really watched it?”

“The whole thing.” Ben grinned, rocking on his heels with his hands deep in the pockets of his scruffy jeans. “You guys put on a hell of a show.”

“Still haven’t got rid of that voyeur thing, huh?”

“Hey, it’s part of who I am.”

Dr. Cox grinned. Ben had always been able to put him in a good mood, no matter how insane the situation. “What else’ve you been up to?”

“Not much,” Ben said. “Lying in the ground, mostly. You still haven’t told me why you’re here.”

“You told me to come here,” Dr. Cox said, his breath misting in the cold air in front of him. He was always very aware that Ben’s didn’t. “You paged me.”

Ben blinked. “Well, I don’t have a pager, so that was pretty impressive of me.”

Dr. Cox raised his eyebrows, looking over at him. “Weirder things have happened, apparently.” He hesitated. “...are you really Ben?”

Ben looked down at himself. “I don’t know. I feel like Ben.” He looked back up at Dr. Cox, grinning mischievously. “Do you want to check that for yourself?”

He half-laughed, rolling his eyes. “No, I – I need to know whether you’re really here, or whether I’m just going crazy.” He paused. “People don’t come back from the dead, Ben.”

“Yeah, well, people don’t get attacked by things with no skin, either.”

“I once treated a violent burn victim.”

Ben snorted. “Come on,” he said, grinning. “I’ve missed you. I haven’t seen you in two years, and the reunion’s just not going to be as _fun_ if you’re thinking about me being dead all the time.”

“I think all the ‘fun’ kind of got sucked out already by the _eyeless monster_ from the home of Kelso Himself,” Dr. Cox pointed out. “Look, I went kind of crazy after you died. I guess I just don’t want that to happen again. I’ve already lost you _twice_.”

“I don’t know. Does it really matter?”

Dr. Cox stared. “You’ll have to _excuse me_ if I’d like you not to keep _coming back and then dying again_.”

“What, you’d rather I just stay dead?”

“I’d rather you weren’t dead in the _first_ place, but as long as you _are_ , that’s what everyone else does.”

“But it’s _boring_ ,” Ben protested. “And anyway, I’ve only actually died once. The second time I just kind of disappeared, didn’t I? At least when I actually _died_ , you didn’t have to watch.”

“Oh, God, you _had_ to remind me that I let you die alone, didn’t you? And the fact that you know exactly what my _hallucinations_ of you did isn’t doing that much to convince me that you’re real.”

Ben shrugged. “Okay, I don’t know what’s going on here either. Maybe you _are_ just imagining that I’m here, which is cute but also kind of creepy. You should probably just remember that I’m dead, so you won’t be too shocked if I disappear or something.”

Dr. Cox laughed humourlessly. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget it.”

-

“Where are we going, anyway?” Ben asked as they walked through far-too-similar foggy streets.

“I don’t know.”

“Ah. Cool.” Their footsteps echoed unnervingly off the buildings around them in the near-silence. Dr. Cox was absolutely convinced that, without Ben here, he would have gone completely insane within five minutes of encountering the first bizarre creature, let alone the fourth.

Of course, it was perfectly possible that he had gone completely insane _already_. He was walking through an abandoned, foggy, monster-infested town, with his dead friend at his side, and no real reason for staying there apart from a need to be _anywhere_ but the hospital and – and he was uneasy about considering it, but – there was always the quiet, inescapable fear in the back of his mind that, if he left, the world would become normal again. A world with no monsters – but no Ben.

There were some things he was willing to sacrifice his safety for.

The pager suddenly went off again, making him jump. Ben giggled at his reaction, and Dr. Cox gave him a half-hearted glare.

“Don’t suppose there’s any chance of that being you, is there?” he asked, looking down at it. The screen was still blank. “Why the hell does it _keep going off?_ ”

“Not unless I’ve got some kind of psychic-paging superpower, which would pretty much make me the worst superhero ever. It’s probably one of the people from the hospital, isn’t it?” Ben asked, craning over his shoulder to see it.

“Can’t be. We’re too far away.” Dr. Cox frowned, tilting it. “Is this in range of _anybody?_ Are the _monsters_ trying to page me?”

“Well,” Ben said, looking down the street, “you can ask them. There’s one right here.”

“Oh, isn’t that just _fantastic?_ ” Dr. Cox groaned, squinting through the fog. For God’s sake, he was already getting _bored_ of being attacked by skinless monsters. He supposed it would probably be funny in retrospect.

If he ever got out of here.

“You could just run away,” Ben suggested.

“Do you honestly think I’d be able to stay _sane_ knowing that they’re still out there, waiting to get me?”

“There are more of them anyway. It wouldn’t really make much difference.”

Dr. Cox ignored him, tightening his grip on the knife as he cautiously approached the twitching creature. It was true that he _hated_ the idea of these things hiding out there in the fog, but there was also a bizarre _satisfaction_ in killing them that he couldn’t deny.

He tried not to think about it, and plunged the knife into its chest.

The creature twisted and flailed and lunged at him, but he managed to avoid its attacks and stabbed it again and again. Eventually it collapsed, with a high-pitched, unremitting scream. There was an uncomfortable silence when it eventually stopped, broken only by the beeping of Dr. Cox’s pager.

“They’re probably the transplant patients trying to take revenge on me,” Dr. Cox muttered, eyeing the pager and wondering whether it would _shut up_ if he just slammed it against a wall, and then he gave an oddly forced laugh. “I don’t know whether to feel glad that they’re getting the chance to torment me for what I did or guilty because I just keep _killing_ them again.” He was only half-joking.

“I don’t see why they’d want revenge when you were only trying to help them,” Ben said. “And anyway, I don’t think dead people turn up again all that often. They’re probably just, y’know, regular hideous monsters.”

“I thought _you_ were dead,” Dr. Cox pointed out, after a split-second hesitation.

Ben looked confused for a moment, and then laughed. “Oh, yeah. That doesn’t seem like the kind of thing you’d expect to forget.” He crouched, inspecting the body of the monster. “I’m not like these things, though.”

There was a brief silence.

“...is it supposed to twitch like that?”

And then it _slithered_ across the tarmac and flung itself at Dr. Cox.

The next thing he was aware of was of lying on his back in the road, staring up into the fog and breathing raggedly. It took him a moment to realise that he was still alive, that Ben had managed to force the creature off him. It was lying next to him without moving, its head at an odd angle – for a human, at least; he wasn’t sure whether these creatures even had neckbones to snap – and the pager had _finally_ fallen silent (and he was beginning to notice a pattern here, which made – well, about as much sense as everything else that had happened so far), and Ben – Ben was _laughing_ now, which – wasn’t exactly how Dr. Cox would have reacted, but –

“Sorry,” Ben gasped, still laughing. “It’s – the way it _threw_ itself at you, it – scary as hell, but it – it _was_ pretty funny.” He managed to compose himself. “No more laughing when you almost get killed. I promise.”

“...thanks,” Dr. Cox said, slightly stunned. There was a pain in his abdomen, and the lower part of his shirt was stained with blood, but he seemed mostly unharmed – the cut was shallow, but in the perfect place for the monster to _rip out his kidneys_ if Ben hadn’t stepped in before it had the chance. “For, uh. For the saving my life thing. Not the promising not to laugh. Laughing’s okay.” He tried to sit up and inhaled sharply through his clenched teeth. “Ow.”

At some point during the struggle he had convulsively seized the creature’s wrist – was still gripping it, so tightly that his entire arm was shaking. He dropped it as soon as he realised. It had felt slick and rubber-like, and he could see the marks of his fingers indented into the flesh.

“Hey,” Ben said, grinning despite his exhaustion, “it’s only fair after you saved me.”

“When was that?” Dr. Cox asked with a sidelong glance at him, as he dragged himself painfully to his feet.

“Noticing the leukaemia thing?” he said, raising his eyebrows, and then placed a hand over his heart, mock-offended. “You don’t remember my cancer? I’m hurt.”

...of course it had been that. How had he forgotten?

“Probably be dead by now if you hadn’t been there,” Ben said quietly, looking out into the fog. Something about that struck Dr. Cox as odd, but he couldn’t quite grasp what it was.

-

JD was pretty sure from the moment he walked into it that the place Dr. Cox had gone to wasn’t going to make his Top Five list of towns. There didn’t seem to be _anyone_ there, the roads were cracked, the outsides of the buildings were dirty – it looked completely abandoned, and the watery sunlight was doing a little to reassure him, but it was still _creepy_. If Dr. Cox had wanted to be alone, he guessed he’d found the right place.

Of course, if Dr. Cox had wanted to be alone, he should probably have killed JD before he set out. It was too late now.

-

“Okay, Ben,” Dr. Cox suggested idly as he walked past the entrance to Rosewater Park for the fifth time, “fun as it is to wander around in circles and get attacked by these things, do you think maybe we should actually try _going_ somewhere?” _Like, say, somewhere that_ isn’t _Hell on Earth?_ , he almost added, but he felt oddly compelled to stay in the town. There was something he was forgetting, he was sure of it. “You were here before me, weren’t you? Do you know your way around?”

There was no answer, and he realised with a horrible creeping slowness that he was alone.

“...Ben?”

He looked around, and then began to slowly retrace his steps. The streets here all looked identical, and the fog seemed somehow thicker than before, and his footsteps sounded so much _louder_ when he was alone. He kept going, trying not to think about what he would do if he had lost him, if one of the monsters –

– and then Ben leapt out at him from an alleyway with an impressive imitation of the hideous screeching of the monsters, and Dr. Cox barely managed to stop himself from attacking him with the knife before starting to laugh uncontrollably.

“You know, Ben,” he managed eventually, “I’m much less likely to kill you if you _don’t do that_.”

“It was worth it.” Ben tried to mimic Dr. Cox’s shocked expression. “I wish I’d brought my camera.”

Something about this was wrong, kept nagging at the back of Dr. Cox’s mind, but he didn’t care because Ben was there with him.

-

Okay, the good news was that JD had finally managed to track his sort-of-mentor-but-not-really-anymore down after three patients died on him and he ran off to an abandoned creepy town.

The bad news was that said sort-of-mentor had clearly gone crazy and was now alternating between yelling at him about monsters and talking to someone who wasn’t there.

At least he’d found him, though. That was a start.

“Right, Newbie,” Dr. Cox said, walking towards him and crossing his arms across his chest. “Seeing as you’ve been kind enough to join me in a town so hellish and horrible that it could only have been created by my ex-wife herself, I’m going to have to ask you exactly what it is that you did to piss her off.”

“I followed you here,” JD said. “I know that you’re still blaming yourself for what happened, but – ”

Dr. Cox gave an odd, forced laugh. “You’re telling me that you’re here because of _me_? So if you get killed, it’ll be my fault. Another death on my record. Yeah, that’s exactly what I need right now.”

“Dr. Cox – ”

“Newbie,” he said, looking directly into his eyes. “I can’t go back there. Hell, the monsters couldn’t drive me out of this place, what makes you think you can?”

“You have to – monsters?”

“Those slimy things that – for God’s sake, Newbie, have you been walking around with your _eyes closed_? The monsters are all over the place.”

“There aren’t any – look, it’s not important. You have to come back to the hospital. What are you doing here?”

“He’s got a point,” Ben said. “If you only came here because of me, why aren’t you leaving? Aren’t there people you need to be looking after back at the hospital or something?”

Dr. Cox didn’t look at him. “I can’t go back to the hospital. I killed three people. If I go back, I might make another mistake.”

“That’s stupid. I don’t know much about this stuff, but I’m pretty sure rabies isn’t the kind of thing you’d normally check your donors for.”

“I _can’t stop thinking about it_. I wouldn’t be able to work like this. Hell, it’s all I can do just to stay on my feet.”

“Well,” Ben said, after a pause, “you don’t have to go back there, but maybe you could at least go someplace that isn’t trying to kill you all the time.”

Dr. Cox looked at him. There was a part of him that felt that he _should_ stay here, that this was a fitting punishment for what he had done, but there was also a part of him that wasn’t an _idiot_.

“Yeah, okay,” he said eventually. “Let’s go.”

-

“Thanks for sticking with me,” Dr. Cox said quietly, as they walked along the path out of the town. “I – really needed you here.”

In spite of the situation, JD couldn’t help grinning. Getting a sincere expression of thanks from Dr. Cox almost made all of this worth it. “Well, y’know, I couldn’t just let you run away, and – ”

Dr. Cox looked at him, his eyebrows raised. “Wasn’t talking to you there, Lizzy.” He turned back to the empty space beside him. “Don’t mind her, she’s just so obsessed with me that she’d _naturally_ assume that I’m always talking to her.” He said nothing for a moment, still looking to his side, and then laughed. “I think you’re onto something there. Maybe – oh, God, I _knew_ this seemed too easy.”

-

He wasn’t really surprised. In a way, he’d kind of expected this.

“What do you think, Ben?” he asked, staring into the chasm with his arms folded.

“Ben’s not a girl’s name,” JD pointed out. Dr. Cox looked over at him in disbelief.

“Great, Newbie’s lost it. Ben? Did you see another way out?”

Ben shrugged. “Nah. Hey, JD, which way did you come in?”

“Why’ve we stopped?”

“I don’t know, maybe it’s got something to do with that big hole in the road. Why are you ignoring me?”

JD said nothing, keeping his eyes on Dr. Cox. Ben shifted his weight from foot to foot impatiently.

“Okay, I know I freaked you out a bit with that stuff about my sisters, but that was _years_ ago, and if you’re still not over it – ”

“Wait,” Dr. Cox said, trying to keep his voice quiet enough for JD not to hear. “He doesn’t seem to know you’re here – he could be delusional.” He paused. “...for two years, I thought you’d died. I thought you’d forgotten to check up on your leukaemia, and – but that can’t have happened, because you’re here.”

“So you went crazy for me. That’s sweet.” He looked at JD. “So, uh, there was some kind of group hallucination thing? You think he thinks I’m _dead?_ ”

“I don’t know. This place could probably do some weird things to his impressionable young Newbie mind.”

Ben said nothing for a moment. “...you feel that you’ve forgotten something?”

Dr. Cox frowned. “...yeah, kind of.” He tilted his head, thinking. “...must be your cancer. We’ve got to check up on it. I’m not going to lose you again.” He began to walk quickly back the way they had come. JD hurried to keep up.

“Where are we going?”

“The hospital.”

“But it’s the other way.”

“Oh yes, of course, I had _forgotten_ how to get to the building that _controls my life_. I’m sorry, Karen, I just don’t have _time_ to figure out how to get out of here.”

“We were on the way out just then,” JD protested, confused, but Dr. Cox kept talking over him.

“I saw a hospital here earlier on – it’s probably abandoned, but it might have some working equipment, and we need to test Ben as soon as possible because we don’t know how bad his leukaemia is.”

JD stopped walking. Dr. Cox turned around and glared at him.

“Come on.”

“Dr. Cox – ” JD hesitated. “Dr. Cox, Ben – he died two years ago. I saw him – you went to his funeral.” He paused. “...I think you’re delusional.”

Dr. Cox stared at him for a moment longer, and then laughed too loudly and carried on walking.

-

Brookhaven Hospital was dark and cold and shadowy, and JD’s quiet breathing was so unnerving in the total silence that Dr. Cox was almost tempted to stop him from doing it. Ben was so quiet that he was finding it difficult to remember that he was there, and something about that bothered him.

“Come on, Ben, you’re supposed to be _clumsy_ ,” he said when the silence got too much for him, keeping his voice low and quiet without quite knowing why. “Can’t you crash into a wall or something, just so we can have _some_ normalcy here?” He pushed open a door and glanced around – it was difficult to see in the darkness, but it seemed to be some kind of office, the wallpaper peeling and the desk rotting. Nothing interesting. He let it swing shut again. “You know, I never would’ve thought that it was possible, but I think that we may actually have been lucky enough to come across a hospital that I hate _even more than Sacred Heart._ ”

The pager crackled loudly and started to beep again. He glanced automatically down at it, and then groaned and began slamming his head rhythmically against the nearest wall.

“Dr. Cox?” JD asked, concerned.

“Okay, Newbie, I’m sure you’ve been looking forward to this, and now you _actually get to meet_ one of those hideous monsters that I’ve been telling you so much about. Lots of fun, right? If you want to stay out of its way and somehow manage _not to get killed_ , well, that’d be _fantastic_.”

JD looked confused, but Dr. Cox was too busy focusing on the faceless creature stumbling towards them to repeat himself. It had the same slimy, skinless appearance as the knife-wielding things that he had encountered outside, but it seemed larger – almost as tall as he was, he thought, although it was difficult to tell with its erratic gait – and wore a tattered, bloodstained long coat that might once have been white. He couldn’t see a weapon, and at this range there probably wasn’t much that it could do, but he wasn’t planning to stick around long enough to find out whether it was dangerous.

“Are you going to fight it?” Ben asked quietly in his ear, and he started and whipped around, always keeping one eye on the advancing _thing_.

“Do you _have_ to sneak up on me like that? Seriously, Ben, I think this place can finish me off on its own _without_ you giving me a _heart attack_.”

“What are you _talking_ about?” JD asked, confused and frustrated and becoming increasingly alarmed. “Can’t you just do whatever you need to do so we can go home?” He tried to push past them and carry on down the corridor – _towards the monster_ , the _idiot_ – but Dr. Cox held him back.

“Can’t _you_ stop trying to get yourself _killed?_ ” He was suddenly very aware of how exhausted he was. “Look, I don’t think I can fight this thing right now, so what do you say we head upstairs and find someplace to hide?” He turned and started walking back to where he remembered seeing a stairway, followed by Ben, a very bewildered JD and – a little way back – the _creature_. He wasn’t particularly worried about it – the _things_ moved so slowly that outpacing them was not exactly taxing – but something about that white-coated thing made him feel sick when he looked at it, and he had a feeling that JD was going to do something incredibly stupid if he let him wander around near the monsters.

He had to give the kid credit for not panicking, though. It seemed that he might have had more stones than he’d thought.

Of course, that brief moment of something that might actually have been a tiny bit like _respect_ was destroyed almost as soon as it was created, when they were standing in a claustrophobic room on the second floor.

“What do you _mean_ , you couldn’t _see it?_ ”

“I don’t know! It was dark!”

“It wasn’t _that_ dark. For God’s sake, Newbie, you should at least have been able to _hear_ it, even _with_ the pager going off.”

“I didn’t hear anything,” he said, clearly trying _very hard_ not to back away. “And, um, your pager couldn’t have gone off, could it? We’re not in range.”

“No,” Dr. Cox explained, very slowly and patiently in his I’m-being-very-very-calm-right-now-because-I-am-placating-myself-with-thoughts-of-how-I-am-going-to-kill-you-in-five-seconds voice, “but the pager isn’t going off because people are paging me. It’s telling me when there are those monsters nearby. The ones that _you_ can’t see.”

JD blinked. “... _how?_ ”

He groaned and covered his face with his hands. “I _don’t know_. All I know is that those things are trying to _kill me_ , and if you can’t tell they’re there because you’re apparently devoid of _senses_ as _well_ as sense, it’s going to be a hell of a lot harder trying to keep them from killing _you_ as well.”

-

After half an hour of ascending creaking staircases, inspecting broken hospital equipment and being shouted at, mocked and on one occasion dragged bodily out of the way of an apparently invisible monster that Dr. Cox _insisted_ had been about to stab him with a hypodermic needle, JD was thoroughly sick of Brookhaven Hospital. They were still there, though, because Dr. Cox refused to leave, and JD couldn’t go without him. All he could do was hope desperately that he would come to his senses soon.

At the moment he was standing in front of yet another rotting door in a darkened corridor, trying not to be too unnerved by the sound of heavy breathing. He was probably just imagining it. Either that, or Dr. Cox was doing it deliberately just to frighten him. Jerk.

“Might be an idea to get in there before that thing comes back and tries to _eat us_ ,” Dr. Cox suggested. JD, having resigned himself to the fact that Dr. Cox was apparently insane and it would probably be best just to humour him until he could convince him to get out of here, pushed open the door and walked in.

They were standing in a large, well-lit room, with a number of remarkably comfortable-looking beds set out. The sheets were rumpled, and there was a film of dust over everything, but it was all extremely tempting nonetheless – it didn’t feel nearly as airless and claustrophobia-inducing as most of the rooms in this hospital. Maybe they could turn the sheets over or shake them out and stay here, just for the night. JD was feeling pretty exhausted. They’d be able to go back to Sacred Heart in the morning – if he could ever persuade Dr. Cox to _leave_ this place.

He turned to suggest his idea to Dr. Cox – and forgot what he was about to say when he saw his _expression_. His entire body had stiffened, and he was staring fixedly at the wall as if it were the most terrifying thing he’d ever seen.

JD looked at the wall. It looked harmless enough.

“Why – ” he began, but Dr. Cox had already bolted out of the room. JD followed, slightly reluctantly.

“Couldn’t we have stayed in there? It looked like a pretty nice place to rest. I mean, I know it was a bit dusty, but compared with the _rest_ of this place...” and then he trailed off, because Dr. Cox was staring at him with the expression that meant that he had just said the _stupidest thing in the world_.

“The _walls were bleeding_ ,” Dr. Cox said, incredulous. “You didn’t _notice?_ What the hell is wrong with you?” He threw his hands up. “Or, hey, maybe you _did_ notice and you just thought that _bleeding walls_ were the _perfect addition_ to any bedroom, but I’ve got news for you: I think that you _just might be_ in the minority on that one, sweetheart.”

“The walls _weren’t bleeding_ ,” JD said, starting to get angry himself. “You’re seeing things. Dr. Cox, we _have to get you back to the hospital_.”

“Okay, I’ll just summon up that incredible ability to leap over gaping chasms while carrying two people that I’ve been keeping in reserve for situations like these. Just – ” He closed his eyes, put a hand to his head. “Just – leave us alone for a moment, okay? I need some time to rest and think and stop wanting to _kill myself_ , and I’m sure as hell not going to manage it with you climbing all over me.”

“What?” JD asked, bewildered. “But you can’t – ”

– but Dr. Cox had already gone, leaving him standing in the darkness of the corridor. In the sudden silence, the sound of dripping water seemed very loud.

‘Us’. So obviously he still thought that Ben was with him. This had happened before, just after his death, and he was _sure_ that it couldn’t end well this time.

He glanced around, and shivered, and set off in the direction in which Dr. Cox had gone.

-

When JD eventually found Dr. Cox, he was lying back on one of the hospital beds, staring at the ceiling. He jerked upright as the door swung open and grabbed the handle of the knife, but when he saw who it was he just rolled his eyes and relaxed a little. Maybe he felt slightly relieved to see that JD hadn’t been killed yet – he shouldn’t have left him on his own like that, didn’t know what he was _thinking_ – but there was no way in hell he was going to let him _know_ that.

“Okay, Newbie, what part of ‘leave us alone’ did you not understand? Given your _complete inability_ to accept that Ben’s here I’d say it’s probably the ‘us’, but I’m open to suggestions.”

JD looked a little startled, shifted awkwardly. “No, I was just wondering whether you – I wanted to know whether you were feeling okay.”

Dr. Cox bared his teeth in a grin that didn’t have a hint of friendliness or warmth behind it. “Well, Linda, let’s see. I’m responsible for the deaths of three patients. I am trapped in a town that seems to be constantly trying either to _kill_ me or to drive me _completely insane_ , and _you_ of all people have followed me here in what I can only assume is an attempt to destroy my sanity even faster. The only thing that’s making my life _remotely_ bearable at this point is my friend here, and guess what? You won’t stop insisting that he’s _dead_. So riddle me this, Rapunzel: how do you _think_ I feel?”

“...sorry,” JD said, after taking a moment to recover from the speech. “I guess – ” and then something occurred to him, and he frowned. “Wait a second – what do you mean, you’re trapped here? We were just going to leave – _you_ said we had to come back.”

“Oh, yes, of _course_ we can walk out of here any time we want. There’s just the little matter of the rift in the road.”

“What rift?”

Dr. Cox stared. “Okay, Lydia, I know you’re not the most observant girl in the world, but I’d like to think even _you_ would notice when there’s a huge gap in the path right in front of you. When we were on the way out of here? Are there any bells ringing in that empty head of yours?”

JD blinked. “...there was nothing wrong with the path.”

“What, so you couldn’t see that, either? Because I’d be happy to prove its existence to you by _pushing you over it_.”

“He could be right,” Ben said. “I don’t know, we could check. I’m getting a little tired of this place. Which is, you know, it’s incredible because you never _think_ you can get tired of being chased by slimy things, but somehow it’s happening.”

“We’re not leaving until we’ve checked up on your cancer. Anyway, he says he can’t see _you_ , so what makes you think he’d be right about this?”

“Do you think you’re talking to Ben?” JD asked, looking uneasily around the room.

“I _am_ talking to Ben,” Dr. Cox said, a warning note in his voice. “How about you just shut up and let the people who _aren’t_ insane talk, okay?”

“Dr. Cox,” JD said, carefully, “you told me that you’re seeing monsters. You said that the walls were bleeding. If anyone’s having hallucinations, it’s you.”

Dr. Cox glared at him. “Okay, you have exactly three seconds to _shut the hell up_ , Angelina, or I’m going to have to perform major surgery on your throat.”

“Ben’s been dead for two years.”

He stood abruptly, his fists clenched by his sides. “ _Shut up_ , Newbie. I’m warning you. I know what’s real.”

“You know, maybe he’s right,” Ben said.

Dr. Cox spun to face him, furious. “ _Don’t say that_.”

“I don’t know, Per,” he said, scratching the back of his neck uncomfortably and looking from him to JD. “I can’t remember how I got here. I can’t really remember _anything_ from the last couple of years.”

“So you’ve got amnesia,” Dr. Cox said, as casually as he could. “We should probably check that out as well.” He sat back down on the side of the bed, gritted his teeth. “People who died two years ago don’t get up and start walking around again. You’re not dead.”

“Yeah, but the kid said that he can’t see me.” Ben sat down next to him. “So, you know, maybe I’m not really here. Maybe you _are_ seeing things.” He put an arm around Dr. Cox’s shoulders, and it felt warm and solid, and Dr. Cox stared at the floor and thought _how can this not be real?_

“Come on,” he said, shrugging off Ben’s arm and standing up. “For God’s sake, Ben, I thought you were _sensible_. It’s hard enough trying to stay sane _without_ having both of you being crazy at me.”

-

Dr. Cox was finding it harder and harder to stay awake. Sleep was impossible, obviously – he knew he would have trouble sleeping _anyway_ this soon after the accident, even when he _wasn’t_ in a town full of slimy monsters that were trying to kill him – but his reflexes were getting slower, and it was getting difficult to think clearly, and if he didn’t get some rest soon he was just going to collapse, probably at the most inconvenient time possible.

...maybe sleep wasn’t such a bad idea after all. The dusty hospital beds were looking more and more appealing.

“Why are we still here?” Ben asked, leaning against the doorframe and glancing absently around the room.

He kind of had a point.

“I don’t know,” Dr. Cox said, yawning. “Even if we manage to find a way of testing your blood here – and I doubt the monsters will have been _thoughtful_ enough to sterilise the equipment – there probably wouldn’t be any way to treat you if you needed it. We should probably try to get you somewhere with better medical facilities, but I’m really not in the mood to go rift-jumping right now.”

“JD said he couldn’t see it.”

“Jenny said she couldn’t see _you_. I’m not going to trust my life to anything _she_ says.”

“Well, then, we can look for another way around.”

While that was a reasonable suggestion, the prospect of spending any more time wandering around in the fog when he was _this tired_ made Dr. Cox want to _collapse and die_. “Yeah, okay. Just – give me a moment to sit down.”

“If you want to get some sleep, I could keep an eye out for those slimy things,” Ben offered.

“You sure?”

“Yeah, I don’t feel tired.”

Dr. Cox folded his arms, looking carefully at him, and then grinned. “Thanks. C’mon, Newbie, let’s get some sleep.” He paused for a moment, surveying the single bed in the room. “You can take the floor.”

“Can’t I sleep in one of the other rooms?” JD asked, looking uneasily at the stained tile floor.

“Well, only if you don’t mind the monsters getting you, because it’ll be much easier if Ben only has to play lookout for one room. And if you say that there aren’t any monsters, or that Ben isn’t here,” he continued, raising his voice and speaking over JD’s protests, “I’m _going_ to hurt you.”

-

He slept better than he had thought he would. When he woke up he saw that JD had curled up on the end of the bed, like a cat. He debated kicking him off, but decided against it – he couldn’t _blame_ him for wanting a more comfortable place to sleep.

“Are we going to try getting out of here, Ben?” he asked, rubbing the back of his hand across his eyes. There was no answer, and he swallowed, suddenly sick with fear, when he noticed the crumpled shape by the door.

Ben was lying on the floor, his eyes open and glazed, one side of his face covered with blood. Dr. Cox scrambled over to him, dislodging JD, who fell off the bed with a yelp.

Ben wasn’t breathing. There was no pulse, and his body was cold, and _no, oh God no_ –

Dr. Cox picked him up and heaved him onto the bed, stumbling and almost hyperventilating, and he breathed into his mouth twice and then he started pressing his chest, and he repeated it again and again and again while Ben lay there, not moving.

“I’m not going to let you die,” he said, even though he knew that it was hopeless. “God, Ben, you can’t – you can’t – ” and his voice cracked and he kept on desperately trying to resuscitate him, even though he knew that it was impossible, that he was already dead, because if he stopped it would be admitting to himself that there was nothing that could be done and he couldn’t face that, he _couldn’t._

Eventually he let Ben’s body fall back onto the bed and he stumbled back, exhausted, and then he seized the lamp from the bedside table and flung it at the door. It shattered, littering the floor of the room with china shards.

“Dr. Cox!” JD was gripping his shoulders, but he was barely aware of it. “Dr. Cox, Ben was never here.”

He stood there without speaking, staring at Ben’s body, breathing too fast. He couldn’t think, couldn’t focus on what was being said to him. Some part of his mind was screaming.

“Dr. Cox. Dr. Cox, look at me.”

He eventually looked up and saw JD standing in front of him, wide-eyed and panicked, his dark hair dishevelled, and something inside him snapped.

-

The fog outside had cleared, but it was pitch-black now and raining hard. The wall at his back was cold and slick with water – he could feel it soaking into his clothes.

“God,” Dr. Cox whispered feverishly, his hands under JD’s shirt and his nails digging into JD’s sides. “God – _Ben_ – ”

JD inhaled sharply at the name, but he said nothing. This was how Dr. Cox _dealt_ with things, and he was going to help him in whatever way he could.

-

Dr. Cox had gone when JD woke up, curled up in the doorway of the hospital. He wasn’t really surprised.

He wasn’t surprised when he found him, either, sitting on the bed in the room where Ben hadn’t died.

“Dr. Cox?”

He said nothing for a long time, keeping his eyes on the floor. JD began to wonder whether he had heard him.

“I shouldn’t have used you like that,” Dr. Cox muttered.

“It’s okay.” He wished that he would look at him.

For a while, neither of them spoke.

“...he wasn’t here,” Dr. Cox said, almost inaudibly, and then he looked up at him and laughed brokenly. “So I guess you were right. I was imagining things.”

There was another long silence. Dr. Cox’s breathing seemed a little harsher than usual.

“He shouldn’t have died,” he said eventually.

“He didn’t,” JD said, confused. “He was never here.”

“No,” Dr. Cox said. “I mean – two years ago, I shouldn’t – ”

“It wasn’t your fault,” JD said quietly.

Dr. Cox stared at him for a long time, saying nothing.

“He was away for two years – you couldn’t have made sure he visited a doctor. You told me to run the blood tests on him as soon as he got back. And – and even if you had stayed and made sure that he was tested, he died twenty minutes later. There wouldn’t have been time to do anything. It would have happened whether you were there or not.”

“I should have been able to save him,” Dr. Cox said, his voice slightly hoarse. “I should have noticed something, or – ”

“You already saved him.” It felt so strange to be the one reassuring Dr. Cox for once. “If you hadn’t noticed the leukaemia in the first place, it could’ve happened two years earlier. You _know_ that.”

Dr. Cox said nothing. JD waited for a moment, and then spoke again.

“The thing is – I’ve seen so many people who would’ve died if you hadn’t been there. If you slip up once, it doesn’t change that.” He paused. “Like – like with the transplant patients. You didn’t know when another kidney might turn up. Anyone would have done what you did.”

Dr. Cox was silent for a moment longer, and then he stood up abruptly.

“C’mon, Newbie. Let’s get back to the hospital.”


End file.
